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Writer's pictureFaith Bugenhagen

Lies I Tell


I hold him in my arms,

I close my eyes and his body melts into mine,

But the combination is too much for me to hold.

I am beginning to fold.

Every time I give him a piece of my foundation,

I begin to crumble.

Every tear I cry for him,

Makes me grow weaker,

He depletes me of oxygen.

Thrusting his hand towards my throat,

I can’t call out.

Everything results in anger.

I look towards the boy that places his head in my lap,

The one who’s soft curls lay on my bare skin,

His gentle voice whispered in my ear.

This is the boy I hold onto,

The boy that I wrap my empty hope in,

Because it’s false,

But it lessens the blow.

I am able to replenish my energy,

To hold him once more,

I am able to silence myself,

Swallow the lump in my throat.


When you enter this life you are not given guidelines. You are not given an exact plan as to what events will occur or precede, you are simply supposed to hold on, to roll with the punches thrown your way. How was I supposed to know that I would be labeled a walking contradiction and begin to morph into exactly this? How was I supposed to understand that the position I had seen others in would be a position I would soon assume?

If I could hold time and have it stand alone in my hand, I would turn it back and erase all that has happened since. I can’t pinpoint anything, my timeline stops and starts with a definition that is not my own.

I would give it all back to restart again, to keep my mouth shut, to swallow my pride, and to redefine what I thought I knew. I would thread my lips with string so tight that it would be unbreakable, no words being able to escape my mouth, because after all I started this.

It’s my fault.

It’s my issue that I let it get the best of me, it’s my problem that I let it grind me down to the point where I felt the words pour out of my mouth each time. I never realized the starting and the stopping, I only saw the faces staring back at me astonished and angered.

If I could take it all back and construct a fabrication of the reality I faced for them, I would. Because I see the hurt they experience every day, the hurt that they feel because of what I am going through, and this is the only thing that actually causes me any pain.

Some people say that the truth is always the best option, but I think this is the biggest lie of them all.

The truth is the option that makes me want to turn back time. If I hadn’t told them the truth, they wouldn’t have pointed out the problem. Ignorance is bliss, and I want to be ignorant.

I want to believe that nothing went wrong, I want to believe he didn’t know what he was doing.

And I do believe this.

I see nothing wrong.

I feel like I am on a tilt-a-whirl, an amusement park ride that is functioning on an endless loop, pulling and disorienting me every which way. I have the pull of them telling me to get out, and I have the pull of him telling me that everything is okay.

And I have the pull of me not feeling any solid ground underneath me.

This disorientation is ripping me apart, piece by piece, with barely anything stringing me together. But, I don’t acknowledge this truth. For my own good, I want to remain glued together, to create an empty facade of a girl who’s not in pain.

They don’t deserve to see me like that, and I don’t know why I ever thought they did.

They deserve for me to hold them on my back, to support them when they have their own problems, when they are struggling to make it through the day, they deserve what they are giving to me.

They deserve all the love that I receive, and I feel so unbelievably guilty for not giving it back to them, all because I want to protect him.

I want to protect him, over wanting to protect myself. I think this is why they’re scared.

I can’t even say I want to admit the truth, because I no longer know or can recognize what the truth is. When I let things slip, when I let what has happened go, I sink deeper and deeper into the confusion.

I feel the hurt, I know it occurred, I know the truth is that I was not in the best situation, but regardless I persist. Because when he laid his hands on me, it was just a joke or something that I should’ve wanted done. When he got angry with me, it's because he just wanted to see me, and when he tried to isolate me from them, it’s because he doesn’t want me to be stressed out.

Or is it because he didn’t want me to see reality?

I lived a lie because of him.

I painted a smile on my face because of him.

I am so tired of still existing for him. It never ends, but one day I cling on to the idea that it will, I cling on to the idea that I won’t feel so damaged and discarded.

 

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